Is this considered an exploit?

[Catt]

Originally posted by DeepO

Well, I don't know. In MP, if I see that I will lose anyhow, I would vote for my friend, he who helped me during the game. True, you don't have to bribe me the last 2 turns, that wouldn't do any good, but if, during the whole game, someone has been giving things, helping out with aliances and MPPs and trading a lot with me, I won't forget that. Of course, if I would be on a good road to a space victory, no-one will get my vote, but this is also how it happens with the AIs: If they feel like they can win, they won't vote for you.

Sure - if I am truly beyond all hope of winning, I would probably vote for the player who has played most honorably and treated me well during the game - but a sudden gift of gold / tech / luxuries [] wouldn't influence my decision (or I suspect others') to risk ending the game or not. Again, I don't think at all the gifting to opposing players is per se an exploit - I am responding to delsolsi's question of whether I consider gifting to AIs just before the UN vote is an exploit. I do.

Oh, I mentioned this just an hour before you posted the 'exploit' here in another thread you were also participating in.

Oh. I didn't see that post and my comment was not in any way directed at you! Sorry if it seemed that way.

But declaring war and waiting for the attack so that the MPPs go in your favor is one of the things I use reasonably often, to intitiate world wars. I know that the AI does not have the same level of understanding what geopolitics is concerned, and dangling a worker in front of them to provoke them might not be a fair tactic, but it will also mean that they are given the opportunity to draw first blood. If they do it right, I will be seriously hampered by their initial attack wave. So it is a choice you make: do you want support from the other AIs and better war weariness, or do you want to take the initiative, risk opposing everyone, and take 'double' war weariness just so you can have a better planned attack?

I too don't consider holding back an attack in order to trigger MPPs in the most favorable way to be an exploit. What I consider an exploit, and a particularly unconscionable one at that, is to sign up a bunch of MPPs just before the UN vote, trigger the war as described, and sail to a landslide victory. Your AI allies will simply never (in my experience) vote against you or abstain - they will always vote for you (could be exceptions, but I haven't seen them). IMHO, this is simply exploiting a "flaw" in the AI logic and dramaticaly cheapens the victory. No fun

Said before but worth saying again - tactics / exploits / cheats are in the eye of the beholder - everyone will come to his / her own conclusions of where a particular action falls on the spectrum - I certainly wouldn't think any less of a player or person because their conclusions differ from mine.

Catt

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Catt
I too don't consider holding back an attack in order to trigger MPPs in the most favorable way to be an exploit. What I consider an exploit, and a particularly unconscionable one at that, is to sign up a bunch of MPPs just before the UN vote, trigger the war as described, and sail to a landslide victory. Your AI allies will simply never (in my experience) vote against you or abstain - they will always vote for you (could be exceptions, but I haven't seen them). IMHO, this is simply exploiting a "flaw" in the AI logic and dramaticaly cheapens the victory. No fun

Now it is my time to blush
I misunderstood you. as I just posted the tactic of laying out MPPs, and triggering them in such a way that you have the biggest advantaged, I thought you were talking about that. In all honesty, I hadn't heard of the 'tactic' to join MPPs and trigger a war with your primal opponent in order to secure the votes, and indeed, this is also an exploit in my view. After you mentioned it, I thought back, and must admit that once I used it unknowingly, except that in this case I was sneak attacked, and did not declare war myself. I remember I was surprised to see so many of the AIs voting for me, I had been honorable, but not especially nice to them. It was the common enemy that made them vote for me. Indeed, an AI flaw which is exploitable.

DeepO

[Zylka]

It's a tough call... I'd say it isn't an exploit